Coaching and Programming for Athlete’s Who Have Limited Schedules, Other Commitments
A lot of the information dispersed in the coaching/training sphere is phenomenal.
I feel as if we have reached a point where, many times, we are explaining the same thing in different verbiage, which, I think is a good thing as the language you use with certain individuals scales based upon their prior knowledge.
However, I think in the grand scheme of information, the crowd that is most often neglected is the “in-betweeners”, the people who are not novices but are also not reaching the apex of the sport. Now, I am aware this covers a wide-spectrum as it is not as linear as: novice, in between, world-class, but I think as the sport grows, we are beginning to see information appeal to the people JUST breaking through to the advanced stage and in the opposite direction, people who are a year into the sport or less.
Visualizing what this looks like, is easy to grasp if we think of a bell-curve.
On the left side of that curve, sits the 1 year or less people, the people who, to NO fault of their own, are easily influenced by things like TikTok and very, 30 seconds or less. These people, have information, literally at their finger-tips. It can be a bad thing, but we can all admit it can be a good thing, the important thing is that it is available.
To the right of that curve, sits the people who are most likely trying to break though, or have broken through, to the point where they are top 3-4% in their given weight class, where things like technique and training ethics are solidified. People at this point, are probably working with a coach, getting guidance in real-time, and again, have that info readily available as they hopefully hired based on that select expertise.
But the fact of the matter is most people sit along the middle of that curve. The people who are by objective standards, middle-of-the-road, but subjectively, a little too advanced for, “3x10 and add 5lbs a session.”
I could be grasping at straws here, but I have a feeling over the span of the next boom in powerlifting, these people will be left in no man’s land in terms of where to go, how to train, and most likely do not have the funds to invest in a higher in demand coach based on extraneous circumstances and commitments.
I am not under the impression I am more knowledgeable than the next person, but I feel this is where I really thrive as a coach. As someone who has trained and navigated through the most difficult circumstances one could endure, maybe shy of severe, severe, life-threatening injury, I feel as if I am able to talk the talk as I have walked the walk.
This might not all be direct experience, but over the course of working with several different demographics and backgrounds, I have been able to apply things from people with certain circumstances, to other’s with similar circumstances. At Team Hogan, we have lifters whose goals stretch from: make USAPL Raw Nationals to wanting to do their first meet to wanting to stay healthy and strong for life.
I may be burying the lead here, but the following will be considerations if you fall into any or all of the following groups and want to most efficiently optimize your training and strength.
Training Considerations For People With a Limited Schedule
Now, this is something I feel I touched on in my last article, but we will give more context here as to what actually to focus on if you fall under this category.
Let’s set some parameters on what this looks like, first and foremost.
To me, your schedule is limited if you:
Cannot devote more than 1 hour to training per session.
You can only feasibly train less than 4 days per week.
You can only train at certain, niche points in the day (very early morning or very late night)
Programming Considerations
Short, to the point.
Duh, but what does that look like, in practical examples? To me, the people who have a very limited schedule need to choose the biggest return on investment-type exercises, you can choose from. So, if we are talking powerlifters, generally speaking, the front deltoid raises, the calf work, the DB shrugs, most likely should not be included as they take time away from what will actually, or at least more efficiently, move the needle for progress. You see, a lot is made out about how important accessory work is, and if you have worked worth with me, you know I share this sentiment. However, when someone wants to progress their 1rm and they have an hour to train each day, let’s think objectively in that are the Ez Curl Bar Bicep Curls going to progress someone’s bench, or is it more bench volume or close variations, more than likely it is the latter.
Unless necessary, stay as specific as possible.
This is especially so if you only train a few days a week AND have a very limited time to actually complete said sessions. For people whose training frequency stretches to 5-6x per week, they can get away with a session of only tempo close grip bench, or a session of conventional deadlifts to compliment their sumo. In my experience, for these people who are already at a disadvantage from training with a limited frequency, suffer greatly when you spend too much time not doing their actual competition style movement. This is not to say you need to be doing comp squat, bench, dead, every session, but it would be well-worth your time to stay as specific as your body will allow, for as long as possible. Variations, again, should be very close in nature. If you are a sumo puller, a paused deadlift works better than sets of 7 conventional and beltless. For these people, I have found a scheme of top set, backdowns on a primary day, and maybe straight sets or ascending volume on a secondary day, works very well.
Realize that you will most likely never be able to truly maximize potential as fast as others without these constraints, training in this manner.
The ugly truth about powerlifting is as you get stronger, the sessions do not get easier or shorter. In fact, just the opposite can be said that they get harder and longer because you have to equate for things such as loading and unloading the bar, warming up, having clear focus, etc… And one hour can quickly turn into 30 minutes after just one exercise of a top set and backdowns. For this crowd, I think you should be accepting that, for the time-being, things won’t take off as fast as they would, if you had more time, but what does that matter, if you truly love training? A mental shift as all, things will come to you, just not as fast.
Coaching People with Limited Schedules
The matter of fact with this crowd is you have to be patient on the other end if you are expecting the same on their end. Many times, people under this sphere train at odd hours that might not align with your schedule and as such, have a tough time getting back to you, or vice versa, so being able to establish a connection in terms of when to expect communication, goes a long way.
I also think in terms of conduct, these people probably have a lot of stress in their life and barring them asking you to do this, I would suggest avoiding communication such as “you looked awful tonight”, as they are most likely aware and do not need yet another entity to dig their stress grave. Be patient, be kind, and be aware that sometimes if they are not replying back instantly, it is for a reason.
Training Considerations for People with Young Children
I will come out and say, this is based solely on my experience working with individuals who have children, as I do not have them myself. To me, this is the crowd that really needs special considerations for their program design as you are usually combatting two levels of disruption here:
Lack of consistent schedule.
Shorter, more random, training sessions.
In short, there are many things that need to be considered and assessed, but I will condense it to 3 main considerations.
Much like limited schedule clientele, people with children need their programming trimmed down to must haves, not nice to haves.
In much of the same manner as people with limited schedules, with a child, by default you have a limited schedule and many times, do not have the liberties of scurrying over to a gym for 2 hours a day. Many of the people I work, train at home because of this (and other reasons) and as such, are not limited only by time but by access to other equipment.
Be ready and willing to get creative.
This is where being skilled in progressions and regressions is very valuable. You may be in a scenario where someone quite literally only has access to a barbell and plates and you are doing this person a disservice, if they have the time, to not provide them with accessory work that can be done with what they have. I think training over the pandemic really helped as a lot of people, myself included, had to get creative in the sense of piecing together movements that looked and felt like movements we do in the gym, but with seemingly random equipment. To give a few examples.
Instead of DB bench, use a weighted pushup.
Instead of a loaded rear foot elevated split squat, use a bodyweight split squat with strict tempo and a pause.
Instead of DB skullcrushers, perform inclined standing skullcrushers with bodyweight loading.
Instead of leg press, use a platz squat.
In essence, do not be afraid to go a bit outside of the box, or at least against the grain, in terms of what and how you program assistance work. I remember doing inverted rows off the end of a table and foot-assisted pull ups to mimic a lat pulldown.
To account for randomness of training, try to progress in smaller increments.
This is something very niche as not everyone uses this methodology for their programming, but for my intermediate level clients, I tend to use pre-planned load caps to control for rate of progression. I think you can do this however you deem appropriate in an ideal scenario, but in my experience, progressions need to probably start heavier and be progressed in smaller increments because of a few reasons.
The first piece, is generally, I have noticed people with children tend to have to be places at a random times (I say random, but realistically it is not) and sometimes that coincides with their training schedule. What this means is it’s not uncommon for people with children to have a conference, or a vacation, or a pickup time, or something of the like, that either severely effects when training takes place during that day, or switches the actual day of training to another day of the week. If you work with me, you are probably aware I preach predictability, meaning, if day 1 of your program is ALWAYS taken on Monday, you can ensure that if any goes awry, it is not by virtue of your body being in a state of limbo. To give you a practical example of what this could look like:
Monday = Volume Squat
Tuesday = Heavy Bench
Wednesday = Off
Thursday = Heavy Squat
Friday = Heavy Deadlift
Saturday = Volume Bench
Sunday = Off
By taking each one of those sessions on the same day each week, you can establish a recovery curve that allows you to tell, pretty much to the day, when you will feel best, versus worst, during a given training week. However, when people have children, especially younger (infant) or school-aged, you can quickly get derailed because of, frankly, more important circumstances. Monday’s workout get’s bumped to Tuesday because you got off work late, Now everything shifts over a day. Then let’s throw another wrench in that your child gets sick halfway through the week, no you are behind 3 workouts and have to either combine or skip altogether. You can quickly see how this can become an issue.
So, if your load progressions are 15lbs per week, someone could take a workout and then not circle back to the next week until 10 days later and by virtue of being rusty, things can feel and look way harder than they need to. This is just my experience speaking, but at the end of the day, the mind can supersede a lot of this but sometimes it’s best to give what the person is throwing at you and run with it.
Coaching People with Young Children
So to put in plain, this is tough to balance. If you have to be patient with busy schedule people, double down on that if someone is raising a young child along with trying to be as strong as they can be. Many times, they’re missing meals, running late, having their mind drift elsewhere, etc… And you as a coach have to realize, this is not their livelihood and to place undo stress by commenting on them being behind schedule on a block, or having to cut workouts short, really gets you nowhere. I have found that if the person is communicative enough, it is not uncommon where we have a talk on what workouts to combine, and what portions of that workout to combine, a few times each block because of schedule changes.
I also feel it is important to remind these people that 95% of all people in this sport are some variation of single, without children, or a student. Most times often all three. The analogy I like to use for people, especially my strong-minded people who do not make excuses for themselves is, “If most of my coaching roster had your schedule and your commitments, they would not be able to keep up with things the way you are keeping up with them”. And this is important because, if I say it, it is genuine, I am not going to lie to you in order to gain your trust, but also, it is true. I often think of the people I coach who have very young children and they are up at 3am training, then going to work, then doing all of their fatherly/motherly duties. Or the people that do all of that and then the LAST thing they do for the day is train. Put yourselves in their shoes, I know for me personally, my training would suffer significantly if I could not have time set aside to do certain things. So, when people go through training lulls, it is important to remind them that they are behind the 8 ball and even minimal progress, is better than no progress, or regression.
Training Considerations For People Going Through Periods of Other Commitments Taking Precedence
I am talking about my students, my workaholics, my “other endeavors”, crowd here.
There is a distinction to be made about using this as a crutch or a valid consideration and I think it boils down to:
How much emotional or mental energy will this require?
How much of my time will this take?
How important is it in the grand scheme of your life?
Not to get too philosophical here, but there will be a time where it is not valid to say, “But I have to lift”, and that changes based upon what you deem important.
I know when I was in college, I knew a few lifters who would schedule deload weeks during finals week because they felt it would be too much to push training hard with study time.
For me, I find I do better with the opposite approach, because it gives me something to look forward to, however, I can recall a period where I would have labs and research papers due weekly to the point where I had to change my training schedule up entirely because I was losing sleep and sanity trying to go for PRs and then decompress and write about the Kreb’s Cycle.
Basically, what I am saying here is to respect your emotional energy as much as your physical energy. For me, the burden of staying on top of studies and training was way heavier than physical labor and the physical tiredness associated with it. Have you ever entered a heavy session with, “I have a paper that I am 1/2 done with due in 2 hours”, in the back of your mind? I’m sure, if you don’t care about your grades and stuff of the like, the answer is no, but when that starts to happen daily, some things need to be set in place.
Lower training volume.
I have noticed with people who are in very emotionally intensive situations outside of the gym, bringing down volume at best allows them to progress without excessive fatigue and at worst, provides a second layer of stress reduction from not being tired to compound that emotional stress. You’d be surprised what you can get away with in terms of volume, I have been lowering training volume for people more than raising it these days.
If you are going to push volume because you need to in order to progress, do it in simple plane exercises.
This means, if you need more volume, do it in something that does not require stability under load. So, instead of 4x7 low bar squats, maybe do 2 ascending sets of 7 on squat and a couple sets of 12 on the leg press or the hack squat, or do extra leg extensions. You will find that volume coupled by substantial weight, usually manifests as extreme fatigue. You might be saying, why don’t they just lift light? Try telling someone to lift light for 8 weeks, who enjoys training heavy, their motivation is going to flat line. That is an example of on paper, that makes sense, but you are not dealing with a test subject, this is a human.
Don’t be afraid to have an abbreviated deload, or reload week.
If you are under a high stress situation, chances are your likelihood of an injury, or an overshoot, or some type of mishap, is very high compared to when you are not. Sometimes, it is best to not fight fire with fire and use that week to springboard you into another stretch of time where you are more, “free”, so to speak.
Coaching People Going Through Periods of Other Commitments Taking Precedence
I think the most important thing here, is telling these people straight up, you need to prioritize this over training, if it is substantial.
Meaning, just because you have a test tomorrow, is most likely not a valid excuse to skip a session, but if you are defending your Ph.D dissertation the next day, that has major consequences for your overall life, fuck the gym, focus on that!
As coaches, hopefully we are in this for the right reasons and I feel sometimes, athletes feel like they are letting us down by prioritizing other things over their training, so make it known that that is not the case and if it is important to them, there is no issue. Now, if someone begins to abuse this consideration, I think it is also important to say your piece on when it is time to just, for lack of a better term, grow up, and get to work, but that is neither here, nor there, if you have a good working relationship.
The theme of the article is patience and time. Things will take time to get back to normal, that is okay, just prepare the person for it!
In closing, I feel as a whole, these are the people that make powerlifting so unique. I always find it so fascinating that every person you see at a 56 lifter meet, as their own unique story on how they got there and it differs vastly from one person to the next. So, if there is a takeaway, it’s realize not everyone is afforded a dream scenario in terms of their training and maybe they are trying their best but life has gotten in the way of more tangible progress. We are all trying, we’re always trying to optimize, but optimal for you might look a lot different than optimal for someone with 3 young kids, a full-time job, and lot’s of extracurriculars to attend to.
To Utopia,
Erik